


A Time for Wolves

by Darkmagyk



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Babies, Childbirth, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-31 16:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12135975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmagyk/pseuds/Darkmagyk
Summary: House Stark survives.  House Stark grows. House Stark thrives.





	1. Kit

After over a decade, it is habit more than anything else. Her eyes just start to follow Jon in the bright morning sun and the low candlelight and everywhere in between.

 

She’s searching for a glint of violet in his eyes, a gleam of silver to his hair. The only pure Targaryen she has ever met was the Dragon Queen. So, she looks for that shape of the jaw and that curve of the cheek bones.

 

But all she ever sees is a Stark. Dark hair and gray eyes and a long face. A man who looks so like his Lord Uncle he was taken for a son for his entire life. It probably should not bring her the comfort it does.

 

She imagines it was the same when Father had looked at him, only the comfort had more to do with Jon’s continued safety and protection, and not relief that House Stark would continue to survive and thrive through him.

 

She glances down to the newborn in her arms, and thinks she will be like all the rest, not a drop of Dragonlord to be found. Already her hair is nearly as red as a weirwood’s leaves. Her eyes are a Tully blue. The other girls’ had darkened to a Stark gray in a matter of weeks, but the boys had kept their mother’s color.

 

The boys who are being shepherded in by their father, now. Robb, eager to meet a sibling younger them himself, goes to jump on the bed with her. But Ned’s been an older brother three times over, and makes to stop him, though his seven year old frame isn’t quite enough to adequately hold onto a squirmy toddler. Jon grabs the younger one from behind and lifts him up.

 

“You have to be careful with Mother and the new babe.” He says gently. And Sansa can’t actually remember _her_ father telling _her_ Robb something similar when she was being presented, obviously, but she likes to think he did.

 

Jon sets Robb gently on the bed. Sansa adjusts her babe so he can see her. She blinks those too big eyes at her big brother.

 

“Mama,” He says, clearly aiming for and missing a whisper, “eyes like yours,” He pauses and glances at his brother, who is looking over at the babe too. “And Ned’s.”

 

“And Your’s.” Sansa says, leaning over to kiss the tip of his nose.

 

“You have your Grandmother’s Tully eyes.” Jon says, and Sansa is always astonished by how he does not sound bitter at all. Sansa loved her mother. Sansa knows her mother had loved her fiercely. She knows why Catelyn reacted to Jon the way she did. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t horrible. Jon never lets that on to the children, “And they are lovely.”

 

He gives both Robb and Ned quick kisses on their foreheads. Ned’s just old enough to scrunch his nose up at it.

 

“What’s her name?” Ned asks, much more careful to crawl on the bed, mindful of his oldest brother status.

 

Sansa smiles at him, and then over his dark curls at Jon.

 

They had been discussing names for several moons. And in fact, up until the maester had declared a girl, they still had not known if they’d call a new son Rickon or Rickard.

 

But a moon ago Sansa had suggested naming the baby after Jon’s aunt. On their sixth try, a Targaryen name seemed right to her.

 

Jon had frowned a bit at her suggestion.

 

And Sansa understood. Jon’s feeling about his Targaryen blood is at best complicated. There is a reason he leaves his aunt on the Iron Throne that is by all right and law his, while he rules the North (and the Riverlands and the Vale) from Winterfell. A reason not one of the five other children bare Dragon names. A reason the King of Winter is called Jon Stark and not Jaehaerys Targaryen by everyone from his wife to the smallest of smallfolk.

 

Jon grew up looking like a Stark prince of old, grew up in Winterfell. Grew up with his very beloved Stark cousins as his siblings, and idolizes his foster father still. He doesn’t have dragon dreams like his sire’s family, he shifts into the large direwolf that Sansa knows is running around the woods right now, corralling the pups. He hates the south almost as much as she does.

 

To have such a reminder of something he still struggles with daily will be hard. To say nothing of the relationship he and the eastern Queen had once shared. A relationship Sansa only knows of in pieces, but knows to have been passionate and fiery right until the painful end.

 

Sansa too has reservations, Daenerys is such a large name for such a little things. Particularly one who’s Valyrian blood is so well hidden beneath the blood of Andals and the First Men. She doubts Robb will even be about to pronounce it properly. He had failed at both Baratheon and Targaryen just a few days prior.

 

But Jon had agreed to the name for a daughter a fortnight ago. And it mostly sat well with Sansa.

 

Still, perhaps she should introduce their new sister as Dany.

 

But all such thoughts are delayed by a banging on the door followed by a shrill cry.

“You will wait for me, Princess.” Only a wildling woman can make the title princess sound quite so dismissive.

 

There is a young girl’s shirk, and then Sansa’s third daughter runs in, followed by her Reed and Baratheon cousins, and the poor nanny.

 

Davia runs right up the bed, on the other side from her brothers and father, with Summer stopping just a step behind her. Aggie pauses to at least try a young child’s version of a curtsy to the Queen and King for at least a moment. Because somehow, out of Catelyn Stark’s six granddaughters, Arya’s daughter has the most ladylike manners.

 

“Mama, Gilly said it’s a girl.” Davia says without preamble, leaning a knee on the bed, but not being able to throw her entire self on it because mother and newborn sister were in the way

The woman herself sighs as she rights herself from her own curtsy and walks up to her charge.

 

“I’m sorry, your grace,” she says, pulling Davia away just a little. “All three of them were very excited to see the new princess.”

 

“The fact that you able to keep them away for this long is an accomplishment in and of itself,” Jon assures her. Which is true. As is that fact that not one of them have smudges of dirt on their faces and that they are wearing dresses, and not the hodgepodge of rags Gilly always puts them in when they spend hours in the training yard, while the Snow boys walk them through the basics of sword fighting and the master at arms watched warily. She knows that must have been what they were doing, because nothing else would have kept them away. Sansa needs to figure out Gilly's secret. How she was able to convince them to wash up before they visited.

 

“It is a girl,” Sansa told Davia, and shifting her again so that all three girls could get a better look, “You finally get a little sister.” A precious gift, Sansa knew all too well.

 

“Her eyes are like your’s,” Aggie whispers to Summer. Aggie’s Baratheon blue eyes are deeper than the River blue of her cousins and a reminder that the the last year has been an extended exercise in the little southern lady trying to make herself fit in with her northern family. But now, it seems to be settling out, Davia is just a year younger and Summer a year older, and despite the differences of Summer’s crannogmen sensibilities, Davia’s four year old wolf’s blood, and Aggie’s newness to the north, they got along far better than Arya and Sansa had until they were nearly grown.

 

It is very nice to have her here. Not far off at Storms End. To meet her new cousin, laugh with her uncle, and try to sword fight in the same yard where her mother once did the same.

 

“What’s her name?” Davia repeats her brother’s question, and Sansa smiles at her. Perhaps it will be good for her to have a sibling who also has a southern name.

 

“Catelyn.” Says Jon.

 

Sansa’s “What?” is drowned out by four children assuring the King and Queen of Winter that they know family history enough to recognize their grandmother.

 

“It is nice to meet you, Little Cat.” Says Summer, as bright as her name.

 

“Kitten?” asks Robb.

 

“No, Robb. She’s Cat-lin, not kitten.” Aggie corrects, like she’d tried to get him to say her house name before.

 

“Little Cat.” Robb says, pointing at his sister, “Kitten.”

 

“You’re right” Jon says, a grin growing on his face. “A little cat is a kitten. I suppose our little Cat is Kitten, too. “

 

“Hi, Kitten,” Robb says, reaching out a hand to touch her soft head. Words and gestures soon repeated by his siblings and cousins. The babe is effectively christened Kitten. Sansa just stares between her husband and the children before she is cut off by her own yawn.

 

Jon notices that, at least.

 

“Davia, Ned,” And both of their attention snapped to the father they are a little in awe of, “Why don’t you go and find the twins? They did not get to hear her name before they left. I’m sure they want to know before the court presentation later.” He turns to his nieces “And Summer, you and Aggie can go find your father and brother, maybe your mother, too. They’ll want to come and see the Queen and our new princess.”

 

Kisses and well wishes are shared for mother and babe, and then all of the children run off, save Robb, who is passed to Gilly to be returned to the nursery.

 

“And please send in the nursemaid,” He adds to Gilly’s back.

“No,” Sansa calls right away, “Not yet.”

 

And they get Gilly’s “Yes, your grace.” as the door closed behind her.

 

Jon looks at Sansa, “are you not tired?”

 

“I can rest with…” she pauses, look down at her new daughter. “Kitten, apparently.”

 

Jon must be laughing at the look on her face. “Do you not like it? I rather enjoy the idea of calling her that.”

 

Sansa isn’t sure, so she changes the subject. “Its more…Catelyn wasn’t the name we agreed to.”

 

Jon frowns. A common enough site, but normally harder to pin down right after one of his children is born. With Robb, it had taken four full moons for his underlying broodiness to return, “Isn’t it? You suggested it.”

 

Now she frowns. Of course she hadn’t, she knows Jon’s scars from her mother run deep. Had dismissed the idea when the twins were born of naming each one after a grandmother. Had resigned herself to having no Catelyn. Had been more than content with a Ned and a Robb.

“You said you’d wish I would consider non-Stark family names.”

 

She had, she remembers that. But she had said that when suggesting they name a girl child after his aunt, not after her mother. Not after his…

 

 _Oh_. His beloved uncle’s wife. The mother of all his dear cousins.

 

His Lady Aunt, Catelyn Stark.

 

Then she see why he liked Kitten so much. The perfect pet name. A way to honor her grandmother without him having to call her after the Aunt who represented so much of his childhood strife.

 

“Of course.” She says. And Princess Catelyn of House Stark and House Targaryen gets her name. Because it seems Jon has made his peace. Because they’ve already told the children and surely it will be around the castle in a hour. Because Robb can pronounce it. Because Sansa likes it more than Daenerys on a purely aesthetic level. Because Sansa would rather name her red headed daughter after her mother. Wants this with a deep sort of ache in her chest. “Kitten is the perfect name.”


	2. Twins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't actually sure that I was going post more. But then I had more ideas. So yeah, here we go.
> 
> This part takes place quite a bit before part 1.

Jon Snow, the Bastard of Winterfell, the only stain on Eddard Stark’s honor.

Jaehaerys Targaryen, the heir to the Iron throne, the Prince that was Promised.

Jon Stark, the White Wolf, the King of Winter.

So many names. So many titles.

But even Azor Ahai had not filled him with this much fear.

Even Jon Stark had not made him worry over worthiness and legacy like this.

Father.

Jon is going to be a Father.

To a little _prince_ of all things.

To the future King of Winter. To perhaps the future King of the Iron Throne.

He paces outside the chamber door at Sansa’s request. She doesn’t want him in there with the maester and the midwife.

He tries not to take it the wrong way, but he remembers being excluded from family events when all of Lady Catelyn’s children had been born. He knows it is different. But it doesn't feel like it.

“Everything will be fine.” Bran says sagely. But he’s got that odd look on his face that normally denotes some kind of worry he’s trying to mask behind his mystic ways.

He’s starting to come back, Jon’s brother. Not always easily or cleanly. But sometime, he seems to exit the fog of visions completely. It is best when he’s with Jon or Sansa, especially if they talk about the babe, or with Meera Reed, who Sansa keeps inviting because of the reactions she manages to get from Bran.

She’s inside with the birthing team now, acting as one of Sansa’s ladies. She can see what’s going on while Jon can only guess in response to the cries and moans and rumble of chatter.

Ghost twitches violently every time something is particularly loud.

“Everything will be fine,” Bran repeats, “Mother managed five of us perfectly well.”

Yes, Lady Catelyn had managed to make it through five labors none the worse for wear. She had brought five exceedingly healthy Stark children into the world.

But Jon’s own mother…

“Jon.” And Jon starts violently at Bran’s hand suddenly on his arm. He didn't notice the wheeled approach. Physical affection, even as small as a brotherly pat on the arm, has been nearly unknown with Bran in many years. “Aunt Lyanna had been locked in a tower with no maester for at least weeks.” He says as though he’s reading Jon’s mind. Though he’s promised he can’t. “In Dorne. You can’t take a direwolf to the south and expect her to thrive.” He squeezes Jon’s arm. “But Sansa is the Queen of Winter. She is a Stark of Winterfell as surely as you or I. And she is birthing your son in Winterfell’s halls. It will be ok.”

It doesn't sound like the old Bran, because the old Bran had been a child, lacking the wisdom to say such thing, especially to his older brother. But it sounds like the kind of thing one Stark has said to another for thousands of years in this very hall.

So Jon nods.

He knows Father, his uncle, had been with Lady Catelyn. He knows Rhaegar had been dead. So instead, he wonders about his Grandfather.

Had Lord Rickard been in the room with Lady Lyarra? Or had he paced outside the birthing chamber, commiserating with a brother or a cousin?

He also knows Lyarra Stark had died young, but not of birthing fever. Had given birth to four children in these walls. And Arya Flint had outlived her daughter, too.

His family is strong. Winterfell is strong. His wife is strong and the babe will be too.

There's another cry. Bran winces, and Ghost pads over to nuzzle at Jon, seeking comfort.

Jon sinks his hand into the fur and silently prays to the Old Gods of the Forest. The gods of the North and of Winterfell.

He does not think about his Targaryen grandmother dying birthing Daenerys after a lifetime of stillbirths and sick babes who died in their cribs.

Instead, he thinks about how many people are already filled with joy at the thought of the babe. Throughout the North people proclaim the new Stark as the dream of spring come at last. It has improved Bran’s mindset, to be sure, but his entire family seems lifted by the news.

Arya’s letters suggest she and Gendry aren’t settling into Storm’s End as everyone had hoped they would, but she sends incessant requests for updates and he sent nearly a full nursery set as a gift.

The situation with Daenerys has been tenuous, even though the long night. But as her entire reason for ending her relationship with Jon had been to secure the continuation of the Targaryen bloodline, the news of the impending arrival had spurned both southern proclamations of congratulations and renewed sentiments of friendship.

Even among Sansa and Jon, and the strange relationship they are both still becoming accustomed to, the creation of something they both had dreamed of, something great for each other and their marriage and their family and the north had eased the most awkward of the tension. They had reached the perfect sort of accord. They hadn’t even needed to discuss names. Despite his exclusion from the birth.

All he can do now is wait to meet Prince Eddard Stark of Winterfell, and pray for mother and babe’s safety in the journey.

The cries and moans pick up again, and through the thick walls they can hear people exchanging worried speech, but not exactly what they are saying.

Then a babe’s cries carry through. And even the guards stationed at the far end of the corridor, who’ve been passive in the face of a rather frantic king, and a prince hiding his worry behind magical stoicism, share a grin at it.

No one opens the door to let the proud father greet his son and wife.

The low rumble of talk from the room just grows more frantic.

Bran actually grips Jon’s hand at this. Squeezes it in quite fear.

“They’re all right,” He says, repeats, “They’re all right, they have to be all right.”

Jon thinks of his father, finding his sister half dead on a bed of blood.

“It can’t happen again.” Jon whispers. Bran just squeezes tighter.

Then more cries of a newborn start. And Jon and Bran pull back from each other to share an incredulous look.

It’s one of the guards who actually asks, “Twins?”

No midwife nor maester nor queen had mentioned any such thing to Jon. He does not know if it is the kind of thing you could tell beforehand.

Not fifteen minutes later, Lady Meera slips her head out of Sansa’s chamber door and bids the King come in.

There is blood, but the maids seems to be cleaning it up. The maester is checking something on Sansa’s midsection at a leisurely pace. No one is hurried or worried.

Sansa eye catches Jon’s as he walks in, and she grins at him. A full faced, joyous kind of thing. Two tiny, squirmy, red thinks rest on her bare chest. The midwife is adjusting them, but she follows Sansa’s line of sight and turns to look at him with her own smile.

“Come and meet your daughters, Your Grace.” She says with a slight dip of her head.

Jon’s breathe catches for a moment. It seems that he’s been so caught up in everyone around him talking of sons, he’s forgotten he could have girls. He’s forgotten he could be blessed in such a way.

But he is so very very blessed. He slips to the bed. On the opposite side from the midwife and maester.

Sansa looks exhausted. Her brow is covered in sweat, her braid is coming undone, her shift is a ruin. But she beams like a Queen at him and the girls.

“Aren’t they perfect, Jon?” she asks.

“Absolutely,” He cannot deny it. Would never want to.

He leans down and runs a hand over the slightly misshapen head, over the reddish fuzz there. He remembers that from when Rickon was a newborn. Most everything he knows about babies comes from that time.

He’s been so successful in not crying this entire time, but the sight of his first-born children, a pair of perfect trueborn daughters breaks him at long last. Tears fall down his face.

He thinks of the Wall and the War. Of dying and coming back. Of Jon Snow and Jaehaerys Targaryen. And every bit of it was worth it for this.

Everything is straightened and cleaned. The maester declares both Queen and Princesses in good health. Lady Meera is sent to relay some of the queen’s requests for the presentation at court and the celebration feast.

The midwife stays. Jon sits on the edge of the bed and just stares.

Bran sits in his chairs and tries to make faces at the girls.

Finally, Sansa brings it up, “What are we going to call them?” They have been in the world for hours, and they do not yet have names.

He and Sansa had both been so sure of a son. A Ned. Two boys would have been just as simple. Ned and Robb.

“I don’t know.”

They will have the Tully looks, if the red fuzz is anything to go by, but Jon does not think he can bring himself to call a child of his own Catelyn.

And that’s still just one name, anyhow.

Sansa looks at him in a question, and then a Bran, and then at the midwife.

The old woman smiles at them, as if they are not her king and queen, but a couple of young first time parents in over their heads, the likes of which she’s seen a hundred of times before.

“Family names,” She advises, sagely, “are always a good place to start.” Then she takes her leave to get Sansa something to eat.

“I can send for a book of Tully family history, if you like.” Jon offers awkwardly. All he can think of right now, other than Catelyn, is Lady Lysa. And that seems a bad omen, even if it might please the Lord of the Vale. Jon doesn’t even remember the name of Sansa and Bran’s grandmother beyond Whent. He’ll have to look that up later.

“Well,” Bran offers, seeming more engaged in the moment then he has been in years, “There are lots of Targaryen names we don’t have to look up. Rhaenys, Visenya, Daenys, Naerys …”

Sansa doesn’t actually laugh at the horrified look on Jon’s face at the idea, but she does have to bite her lip against it. But when she calms she shakes her head.

“I think what the North _and_ the South needs, is a reminder of _our_ House’s strength. We need Stark names.”

Stark family history, at least, is something Jon is very familiar with. Though perhaps his first choice is cheating. “Do you think she’d be mad if we name one of them Arya.”

Sansa rolls her eyes, “I think we can only do that if we come up with another name that will have as much meaning as not just a dearly beloved sister, but an Aunt who can send her niece all manner of gives.”

It’s a fair point.

“You could call the other one Sansa.” Bran says, and then bursts into the closest thing to real laughter Jon can remember since before he fell at Sansa’s face.

“Under no circumstances will they be Sansa and Arya,” She nearly growls. Jon doesn’t think it’s so bad an idea. But the queen has spoken.

However, there are no other living female Starks to provide a name. The only other female relative period is Daenerys. And the answer to that choice will always be a very affirmative _no_.

While Jon runs down lists of notable ancient Starks and Sansa stares at the babes as though willing them to tell her their names, Bran sighs loudly.

“Am I going to have to be the one to say it?” He asks, and then apparently decides his is based on Jon and Sansa’s confused looks in response.

“Lyanna.” He says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Perhaps it is.

But its also unfair. Jon cannot dismiss the name of his wife’s mother and then insist on using his own. Especially not when Lady Catelyn was such a strong presence Sansa’s and Jon had not even known his mother’s name.

Sansa looks at each girl in turn, carefully poking and prodding. Considering.

“Right,” She agrees, as if it’s that simple “Lyanna.” And she hands one of the babes to him, “That one’s Lyanna.”

It is that simple.

His eyes start to prickle again with tears, holding his own little Lyanna Stark.

“Now we just need…” Sansa starts, but Jon cuts her off.

“Lyarra,” He says, “That one’s Lyarra.” He might not remember the name of Sansa and Bran’s Tully grandmother, but he knows there Stark one. Knows his Stark grandmother, too.

Lyanna and Lyarra and Sansa and Bran. Arya is missing, but she is alive and safe. This is his family. This is everything.

He lifts Lyanna to kiss her soft cheek.

Neither of them is Ned, of course, but he still hopes their grandfather is proud of them. And proud of him. 

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in this fandom. And I just want everything to be happy and fluffy.


End file.
